BETWEEN A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE - DIVERSITY, INSTITUTIONAL IDENTITY AND GRANT-MAINTAINED SCHOOLS

The 1996 education White Paper on self-governance confirms the governm ent's long-standing commitment to diversify educational provision and to employ grant-maintained schools to take that agenda forward. This p aper considers the extent to which self-governing schools have contrib uted to diversification of the system and argues that there is little evidence that they have provided programmes which are innovative or mo uld breaking. Why this is the case is explored through interviews with headteachers of nine grant-maintained schools. It suggests that schoo l responses are crucially shaped by the headteachers' interpretations of the conflicting demands of national policy frameworks and local com petitive markets in education. In curriculum terms they show a propens ity to consolidate their schools' identities around what the schools h ave done in the past rather than embrace the opportunities to modernis e presented through the government's funding priorities.